Three - Evangeline
The little bitch had given up carrying me and was now dragging me behind her by one arm. Numerous people stared at us from barred windows and dark alleyways as we passed, but none tried to intervene. With this part of town constantly being fought over by the three old gangs, nobody wanted to take the risk of upsetting the wrong person.
Which was fair.
But just for this humiliation, I was going to enjoy killing the little witch. Then again, I’d planned to kill her when she had taken off my leg. You just didn’t do that to a crippled.
The only crippled thing about you, Aurelia said, the smug tone of her voice making my lips twitch, is your brain.
Yes! Fuck you, Richard the Leg Stealer. My lips just twitched. You are so dead.
“…you killed my d…” Blah blah blah.
“Richard” was still going on and on about whatever wrongdoing I’d committed against her. She hadn’t shut up yet, so you’d think I would know why she was out to kill me, but honestly, I didn’t have a clue. I mean, why bother listening to something that didn’t matter? She would be dead soon, and then I would’ve wasted precious memory space for nothing.
“…fucked...a starving mole…”
And I had more important things to concentrate on than a boring monologue by a dead woman walking.
Like what family Cunt Face came from…
Why isn’t she a Richard? Aurelia asked.
You know why.
Because I’m you or because you told me before?
She did this every time I chose to call a target anything other than Richard, and it was really starting to grate on my nerves.
It’s because you know he should be forgiven, Aurelia continued in that high righteous voice of hers that made me want to bitchslap myself just to get to her. That’s why your big targets are never named Richard. It’s only ever the small ones. You’re holding onto your hatred out of pure pettiness.
No, it’s because if I called everyone Richard, it would get confusing, I said through mentally gritted teeth.
Mmhmm.
Her clear disbelief in my answer caused me to narrow my eyes.
Ha! Another movement.
“...their cocks deep in my womb…”
If I let go of wanting to kill Richard, then I become sane, and where would you go, hmmm? I pointed out. You’re just trying to commit suicide again, and I’m not going to let you.
She grinned smugly. So you admit it was a suicide and Richard didn’t kill me.
But he had.
He’d been the “pill she’d swallowed” because our laws didn’t allow an heir to take the throne without killing all their sisters. Because suicide was illegal in Raza, and if Aurelia had taken her own life, she would’ve just been resurrected. So she had ordered her own brother to kill her so he could become king.
And the bastard had done it.
He’d done it without any hesitation.
Greedy and power hungry for the throne.
You know that’s not true, Aurelia said softly. He did it to save me.
Saved her from a life that would have destroyed her. Saved her from a death that would have seen her soul forever trapped in a fairy ring, never able to reincarnate, never able to find peace.
So he says, I gritted out, glancing away but being unable to avoid her presence in my mind.
Ha… I thought half-heartedly, distracting myself from her. Another movement.
Richard the Leg Stealer was as good as dead.
Her magic, although strong, was too volatile under her anger, her spell becoming weaker. All witches knew magic was delicate and complicated, each cast requiring one to take into account the time of day on a distant star, the emotions in the air, the number of droplets making up a specific lake, how many shits a grasshopper had done that day, what a frog on another planet was saying to a fly – a thousand different things influencing it. And one wrong calculation, one shift of numbers even after it was cast could cause the spell to crumble.
Or so everyone thought.
But the truth?
“…masturbation is better than most dick…”
Magic was alive.
It was an actual entity even though it couldn’t speak. Even though it didn’t have a face. And its favourite meal was human flesh. ‘Human’ being all humanoid creatures, not just those pesky things on Earth, who’d stolen a term that was thousands of years old.
Magic hated being forced into servitude and so would take every chance it could to turn on its master. If one didn’t bind it down with very specific restrictions, then it would escape and chew their face off.
I’d like to chew Richard the Leg Stealer’s face off too, I said to it. Perhaps we can come to an agreement…
There was no answer. There never was. Magic couldn’t talk.
But I could move my fingers now, my magic pushing against hers, her magic letting me. For some reason, magic and I had always got along. Perhaps it was because I never forced it. Perhaps it was because I kept offering it ways to hurt people – there was a reason dark magic was stronger than light.
Nah, it’s because you’re both insane, Aurelia cut in.
Says the person that’s not even alive.
She laughed. I’m just going to let that sink in for a sec.
Ignoring her, I tensed the muscles in my leg. Then my abs. Everything was back to being free.
“Heads up, I’m about to kill you,” I told the woman, looking up the arm holding me. Couldn’t say I wasn’t fair.
Richard screamed, dropping my arm as she jumped half her height into the air. “You! How are you free?”
I stood, brushing off the flakes of tree bark stuck to me. A frown curled my lips at the sight of all the tears in my clothing. For fuck’s sake, I’d just bought this outfit.
Granted, it wasn’t one I’d ever wear again as this was the last time I was pretending to be Alanara Gibison (my current face; if I’d gone by Evangeline, everyone would’ve tried to collect on my bounty) and her sense of style was not anywhere close to mine, but I hated waste.
“Sixteen tears,” I said after a quick count, then looked up at her still slack jaw. “That’s sixteen times I’m going to stab you.”
I darted forward, pulling out one of the many knives strapped to me. What an idiot. Richard didn’t even pat me down.
She didn’t exactly have time…
I rolled my eyes at Aurelia’s constant need to stand up for everyone. Give them a fair chance. The eye roll came with a bittersweet pain in my chest though. Annoyingly, she’d used to stand up for our enemies on the frontline during war too. Sometimes physically standing in front of them so we couldn’t kill their wounded.
A bleeding heart to the end.
You’d care more if you weren’t obsessed with hearing me all the time, she said.
In response, I stabbed Richard in her gut ten times before she could do anything more than babble blood out of her lips. Caring was stupid. My job was to kill people. And letting anyone close enough to care didn’t make any sense in my line of work. That was why Aurelia was my best friend – because she wasn’t real.
Oh, Ev…
I stabbed Richard five more times. She feebly tried to cast a spell, but she was too far gone at this point. If she managed, the magic would kill her before she’d bleed out anyway. Magic did not give mercy to the weak.
Sliding the knife into her one last time, I held her as she collapsed against me. Murmured words of hate filled her last breath. Then she collapsed to the ground, and I looked down at her chest, a smile spreading at the bloody dick constellation I’d stabbed into her.
I’d tried making vaginas once, but they had a really hard shape to connect the dots with, and no one had then appreciated my skill.
I glanced around the small dark street, not trusting the moving shadows to cloak us for long. A cloud had moved over the sun, darkening the tree we lived in, its branches and houses providing even more cover from curious eyes.
Not that people were very curious in this part of town. You didn’t survive here long being nosy.
Moving my hands over Richard’s dead body, I opened myself up to my magic. It flew through my palms greedily, manifesting in a cloud of energy in front of me, like a heatwave flickering through the air.
It curled around Richard’s body, consuming both flesh and bone, and a shudder of heat spasmed through me, my hairs rising on end. I could feel it eating her through our connection. Magic was truly alive, not that anyone else would admit it. Even Aurelia thought it was crazy of me to give a personification to a ‘thing’. Claimed it was due to my desperate need for a friend.
Now that was crazy.
I was happiest when I was alone.
Liar.
The woman on the ground now completely gone, my body buzzed with energy. I used it to heal the wounds Cunt Face and her people had given me back in the cafe. A warmth spread through the open flesh, and within a few moments, I was as good as new. Spreading my wings, I headed towards one of my many secret bases.
Although my hideout in the Perfume Markets was the closest, I wasn’t desperate enough to use it. That one was only for emergencies, for when the alternative was a very torturous death.
And Cunt Face was only planning on trading me to someone who wanted to torture me to death. The fact that there was a middleman automatically made this not an emergency.
So I headed northwest instead of southeast and cast a spell of invisibility over myself as I did so in case anyone was watching. The branches grew busier below me as I headed towards the centre of the tree. The metropolis of the city curved around its trunk, and the suburbs were thickest closet to it. In a few more minutes, I landed at my hideaway – an unfurnished for sale house whose sign I’d thrown away. I checked all the windows looking down onto the place, as well as the foliage around it. Seeing no one watching, I quickly picked the lock on the back door, opened it, and slipped inside.
The door locked behind me, and still cloaked, I made my way into the bathroom for two reasons: 1. The only window was small and tinted so no one could look in, and 2. All bathrooms were spelled with silence these days, trapping all noises inside. Great for when you were taking an explosive shit – or when you were about to laugh bloody murder.
I stripped naked, then taking a deep breath, I sat down on the cold tile floor, slumped up against the cabinet sink. Releasing my breath, I ignored the shivers of anticipation racking my body, and pulled on my magic.
My high-pitched, maniac laughter echoed around the bathroom. It grew in volume as my magic ate the skin off both feet, moving up, revealing muscles, ligaments, and. Tendons. New skin stretched over the area being stripped away, only a few millimetres behind, but with it came more pain as it reconnected to the nerves that had been severed.
My eyes rolling back in my skull, I slumped against the cabinet. Laughter bubbling up my throat, I dug my nails into the tiles as my body broke out in a sweat. The sweet pull of unconsciousness lured me like a siren’s song as the magic ate its way up my muscled stomach, but I clung to awareness with every bit of strength I had. To slip under would be to die, consumed by the magic completely.
By the time it reached my neck, I was balled up on the floor, covered in sweat and laughing in broken rasps. It reached my chin, then my eyes, eating the sclera away. For a moment, the world disappeared, but the pain stayed like the last table at a restaurant when it was long past what could be closing time if they’d just fucking leave.
My stomach churned with the urge to vomit as my vision came back, and my limbs shook with a need to fall into a deep sleep so I could recover. Trickles of laughter passed my lips as I pushed myself upright, then clawed to my feet, using the sink as a handhold.
I found a set of familiar gold eyes in the mirror. Flecks of blue filled them like little stars, a rough match to the bright blue of my hair. Soft tendrils of it curled down to my chin, and with a weak smile pulling at my lips, I rolled my earth-coloured shoulders, loosening the tight stretch of my skin. There weren’t any tattoos on my anymore, no runes to strengthen my magic or warn me of danger.
Elana, the name of this identity, was not a witch. She was, however, a face I used often in this part of town. The reputation I had built in this skin would allow me to rub shoulders with those I hunted.
Aurelia was quiet, as she always was during this time, and her guilt made me uncomfortable.
I’m okay, I said, remembering how she’d looked at me the first time I’d lost my skin.
It hadn’t been caused by magic then. I had followed Aurelia well behind enemy lines to assassinate the Vylian king, but right as we’d neared the city he’d been in, Princess Seqora, Aurelia’s older sister, had dive bombed one of the Vylian civilian cities further back. As her squad of ravens had killed hundreds of kids, Aurelia had faltered in her mission to kill King Dravr. Instead, she’d called the alarm, making sure the Vylian army went back to defend their children.
Upon our return, Princess Seqora, being a higher rank, had stabbed Aurelia in the side. And then she’d punished her further by skinning me while she’d watched. It had been a punishment for me too though. As a highborn, it was my responsibility to make sure royals didn’t harm the kingdom. By letting Aurelia call the Vylian alarm, I had committed a crime.
But my punishment had hurt Aurelia more than me.
And her guilt still clung to the last presence of her soul.
Pulling up a false smile, I ribbed her inside my mind. “Look how cool my eyes are.”
She rolled her eyes and shook her head, but she didn’t say anything as she squeezed my shoulder.
A ragged breath escaped me. I yearned so fucking hard to really feel her touch, to know she was alive.
My throat burning with the tears in my damn pretty eyes, I turned away from the mirror.
I had work to do.
Hopping into the bedroom, I sat down on the floor and drew a circle on the wooden planks in front of me with two fingers. A black line followed my digits, and when I connected the end of the line to the beginning, the hole was filled in with pitch-black magic, and the clicking of jaws and the scuttle of many feet sounded from inside it.
My hairs rising, I shoved my hand through the hole. I could almost feel the monsters’ mandibles digging into my flesh. I could almost feel the pop of my shoulder as I was yanked down into their world. I’d deliberately made the hole too small to fit my body through, but that didn’t mean something in there couldn’t get out.
My pulse quickening, I reached all the way through the passage of space and grabbed a spare prosthetic leg from my home closet. I yanked my arm up just as the feel of hot breath hit my elbow.
Magic pulsed out of my arm in a bright light, but it didn’t penetrate the top of the hole. That stayed pitch-black as the sound of hissing and scuttling feet reached my ears. I closed my eyes as the top of my arm came free, bringing with it the blinding light.
When the prosthesis was fully out, I quickly swiped my other hand over the black circle, disrupting the magic and closing the door to another plane.
A chuckle of relief calmed my racing heart, and I bent over to attach my new leg. Shaking out my hands, really not liking the tight feel of new flesh, I then crossed my legs and opened myself up to more magic. Both my arms moved gently in front of me, pulling and pushing, crafting the energy humming out of my fingers.
Come on, baby. Let’s go find some people to kill.
Richard might have interrupted Cunt Face before she could tell me what gang she was from, but if CF had taken my leg, I’d be able to track it, having carved a secret detection rune inside it.
The magic purred inside my limbs, seeping out faster, and I worked quicker to control it. The hairs rose on my arms and neck, the air electrifying as a vortex of energy formed in front of me, shimmering like a pane of glass. Its surface rippled, showing the tree I was in from a bird’s eye view. It zoomed in, past the branches of the city, the people a blur. When it focused on a familiar building, a smile graced my lips.
It was a major hub in the southern slums – home to the infamous underground pits owned by the Raveni. I fought there quite often, taking great pleasure in winning money from them, which I then used to fund FI-9’s missions in taking them down. My predecessor had tried to close the pits, her tiny brain not realising it was more beneficial to keep them open and littered with our own spies.
This job had just turned into a piece of cake; one of my informants had got in touch right before I’d gone to the restaurant to tell me she’d discovered something juicy.
Picking up the dozen of knifes in my discarded clothes, I strapped them on me, then got dressed in a fresh outfit. I turned the ruined clothes into dust with a few flicks of my wrists – destroying all evidence in case someone found my hideaway while I was out. Leaving fresh clothes in the closet was one thing. Leaving bloody clothes on the floor was another. As I spread my arms out, the dust dispersed in a way that totally counted as cleaning.
A grin on my lips, I headed for the door, then towards the fighting pits in Alira. Slipping into character, I walked with my shoulders, my steps heavy, my eyes flicking left, right, and up in skittish paranoia. I stuck both hands in the pockets of my jacket as I strode with purpose. Flying was good and all, but it wasn’t very energy efficient, and I needed to conserve as much as I could given I was about to enter a viper den with the plans to start a fight.
I headed towards the end of the branch. With the rich metropolis circling the trunk of the tree, the further out one went, the poorer the neighbourhoods got. I spread my wings when I got a bit further and flew down to land on a much thicker branch.
The wind shuffled the leaves around me, and I jerked my head at every noise, my shoulders tensing. Beady eyes followed me from doorways and windows as I walked between run-down houses in need of repair, though not so much they were at risk of falling down in the next strong gust of wind.
A little girl sat outside one of them, a hog-tied boy squirming behind her. He mumbled frantically against his gag, and she held up a sign with wonky writing:
Brother for Sale 3p
I told myself to keep walking. I had more important things to deal with than breaking character to help the kid. Elena –the name of my current face– didn’t like kids. If anyone was watching me –and everyone was watching me– helping them could destroy my cover.
Avoiding the kid’s eyes, I stepped past them.
Evangeline, are you really going to – Aurelia started, but I’d already stopped, my feet rooted to the ground.
Exhaling with an annoyed sigh, I turned around to face the girl. “What are you doing?” I asked, my eyes skirting left and right as I hunched my shoulders, looking skittish and uncomfortable.
The boy screamed against the sock shoved into his mouth and taped there.
“I sell bubba. Wanna buy him?” She peered up at me, her blonde hair falling over blue eyes of wary steel.
“What’s he done?” I asked, my eyes leaving her face to roam the street. Everyone I caught watching me instantly looked away, but it didn’t make me feel any less watched.
“He ate my cake.”
I looked back at her, a small smile tugging at my lips. “That’s a high crime.”
She nodded solemnly, then turned around to glare at her brother.
You have to help –
“Here, hand me that,” I said, snatching the sign she held and grabbing the marker off the ground.
She watched me warily, no doubt expecting me to steal it. A lot of people stole dumb shit in this part of town – more concerned with the act of stealing itself rather than what they could get for it. Not much to do here other than commit crimes. Not many other ways to make enough money to eat.
After scrawling on it, I handed it back to her. “You need to learn more about business – supply and demand, you know?”
“Brother for sale...fresh organs,” the little girl said slowly. Her eyes lifted to mine, shining brightly above her grin. “Thanks, lady!”
I nodded, feeling good about having helped.
Evangeline! Aurelia yelled, and I turned for the pits with a little hop in my step. I liked it when she shouted at me. I liked hearing her bickering inside my skull – so passionate, so alive.
You’re not really going to allow child organ trafficking, are you?
Eh. A few years ago, he would’ve been listed an adult. What is a number, really?
That’s not what I meant!
I know, but death was most unfair when it took you, I said. Taking a kid who’s going to grow up and join a gang is nothing in comparison.
Evangeline… She sighed. You can’t keep using me as an excuse to hate life, to keep everyone out. One of these days, you’re going to get broken open -
The Hel I am. And I’ve not kept everyone out, I said as I reached the door. The bouncer moved in front of me, her eyes hard, her shoulders tense. You are literally inside my skull. Can’t get any closer than that.
Holding out a wooden wand, the bouncer gestured for me to spread my legs. I did so without concern, having been through this process dozens of times. Wands were rarely used by true witches due to being too easily lost. The fact that she had one meant she was most likely using a premade – a wand spelled for non-magic users. It would get the job done in most cases, but its magic was weak, its spell too generic to be of any strength, and when put up against an actual witch like myself, it’d become useless.
And I talk to my daughter, I added as the bouncer bent down to run the wand over my legs. She wasn’t looking for hidden weapons – just people with prosthetic limbs. Evangeline Sinclair might have many faces, but she never had two legs – disguise magic not being able to grow new parts or add extra mass.
It tickled my fancy every time I came here. They really did hate me, and gods, I was looking forward to the day when they finally realised I’d been visiting here often.
This security guard would definitely be killed for a shit job then. Ha.
Pinching my lips together, I bit back my giggle.
Your daughter is the only good thing about you, she grumbled.
And though it had been meant as an insult, it made me smile. My daughter was fucking amazing. Though raised by me, how could she not be?
Aurelia rolled her eyes as the woman lifted both legs of my trousers. She pointed the wand at them to make sure I wasn’t using any magic to cloak them. But my magic was a lot stronger than that wand’s, and I passed the exam easily.
She straightened and stepped to the side, granting me entry into the pits.
Just wait, Aurelia said as I entered. One of these days, someone is going to knock you down, and I’m going to laugh my ass off when they do.